The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs

Although this book is not a meaningful contribution to literature, it does a very good job of helping you think about the way you live your life. It is a sourcebook for how to live a less stressful, more joyful live. Luhrs is the publisher of the Simple Living Journal, a journal she created when she decided to stop being a lawyer and start living a more enjoyable, more simply life.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck all the marrow of life… ---Henry David Thoreau

Luhrs starts out her book (N.Y.: Broadway Books, 1997) with the above quote and her discussion of its meaning. "Now, finally, I really, deeply understand the quote. The key word is not woods, it is deliberately…This one word…is the hallmark of a simple life…Simple living is about having money in the bank and a zero balance on your credit card statement. If you want to travel, you are conscious enough about your choice that you are willing to give up something else…Simple living is about making deliberate, thoughtful choices. The difference is that you are fully aware of why you are living your particular life and that life is one you have chosen thoughtfully…" (p. xiv).

Luhrs notes that it is easy to find an excuse for not living simply, for not living deliberately, for not living the life you want to live. Those who live simply, deliberately, don't make excuses. "Not one of them waited around for someone else to make things better, and not one of them blamed other people or other systems for keeping them from what they deemed important. Nor did nay of them absentmindedly wake up one day wondering how their life came to be" (p. xiv).

"Living deeply means living consciously…being fully present, fully aware. If you buy a big house, you are fully aware of the yin and yang trade-offs involved. (Yin and yang is a Chinese phrase that means opposites. Often this means that any choice we make has opposite effects---one positive, one negative.) The yin of a big house is that it is pleasant and comfortable, maybe even impressive. The yang is that you need to work many, many more hours at your job in order to pay for it, and that means giving up other parts of your life. When you live deliberately, you are totally aware of this balance before ever signing a paper. When you live on automatic pilot, you skim the surface of life and see only the immediate gratification of this house. Then you wonder, months or years later, why you are on the treadmill of work and spend, work and spend.

"Living deeply means living intimately…closely tied to the people, places, and things in your life. When you simplify, you'll have space and time to know and love people in a deeper way. You'll present your authentic self to the world and will create a life that is authentic for you. You'll surround yourself with people who like and love you for who you are deep inside, rather than the professional or other kind of persona you project to the world. Simplicity and living deeply means shedding all of those outward layers of image and busyness that keep us from being close to ourselves and other people. It is a more authentic life. Simplicity is living from your essence…your core. You can discover this essence only when you slow down and begin to live deliberately, consciously" (p. xv).

It is not enough if you are busy. The question is, What are you busy about?                                                                                  Henry David Thoreau

Luhrs feels strongly that developing a joyful life is an essential ingredient in the formula for living a simple life. She emphasizes this by providing the following quote:

Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of influence. ---Abdu'l-Baha

Another of the ingredients is patience. Life is not necessarily joyful overnight or without effort. It is easy to get caught up in despair due to the demands life makes upon us. However, that despair is a distraction from the beauty that surrounds us.

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.---Albert Camus

Luhrs has no new insights for us. She does a good job of packaging the many old insights that can help us move toward living a wonderful life, a simple life, a better life. She understands that none of this is new as she quotes Plato as follows:

In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.